Best Movies of 2009

Every year it seems like I intend to get out and see more movies, and every year I fail once again. I only visited the theater nine times, and only managed to at least catch one new movie at home before writing this. Quite shameful. It didn't exactly strike me as the best year, with only one film I'd call outstanding in addition to a handful of solid genre stuff. I should have at least seen the new Coen movie, though.

Best of 2009

7. The Men Who Stare at Goats


I'm not sure what's holding me back from really embracing this movie, but I did enjoy it quite a bit. Any time a comedy takes a few steps away from the traditional beats of the genre, it's usually worth at least a try, and this film makes for a nice mix of relevance and sci-fi absurdity. Plus it's hard to go wrong with that cast.

6. The Hangover

There really isn't that much that separates this movie from the pack of mainstream comedy, but the likability of the whole cast and especially Zach Galifianakis' breakout role just make it work. It was a bit of a risk letting him do his own thing in what is otherwise fairly standard stuff, but thankfully it seems to have been a good idea. Definitely hits the ceiling for this sort of movie.

5. Avatar


Flawed yes, but ultimately I find Avatar much easier to like than hate. It's already the second highest grossing movie worldwide ever, after of course Cameron's last movie, but I actually enjoyed this one for the most part, and it didn't do the disservice of putting me off one of the best actors currently in his 30s for about a decade.

4. Zombieland


Just a straight-up fun movie and one of the best surprises of the year. I don't know how much the writers being handed Deadpool affects the possibility of sequels going forward, but I'm not sure they're necessary. Just showing a snippet of life in the zombie apocalypse was all they had to do, and it worked out pretty well in pretty much any way you could hope. Good times.

3. District 9


I didn't love it like it seemed most of the online community did, but it was still a well done, passionate film that had something to say. It's striking how similar it is to Avatar in some ways, but District 9 isn't weighed down by a budget in the hundreds of millions and a need to make that all back, allowing it to take chances and present a more interesting, darker vision. And I won't get tired of watching people explode into splashes of red goo for a long time.

2. Star Trek


I've seen 79 episodes and seven films in this series, and I enjoyed this the most pretty easily. We'll see how much longer its success can carry my interest in exploring the decades-old franchise, but in case I'll always enjoy it for being a relatively intelligent space travel movie with a very likable cast and wonderfully paced adventure. You know, I didn't even realize Eric Bana was the villain while I was watching it? That was odd. I need to see it again now that I know Bones is awesome.

1. Inglourious Basterds


Basterds wasn't really what anyone who didn't read the script expected. And for some people that was a very bad thing. They wanted a couple hours of Brad Pitt and some Jews kicking Nazi ass, and instead they got a lot of long scenes mostly depicting extended conversations between some Europeans. And they were disappointed. For those people, I am very sorry that they didn't get it. I could have enjoyed what the trailers seemed to promise, but what I actually got was so much smarter, and better, and well, more Quentin Tarantino. He had the audacity to end the movie by having Brad Pitt look at the audience and essentially call the film his masterpiece, and you know what, I think it was. Fantastic movie.

District 9

You may or may not know the back story; Neill Blomkamp grew up in South Africa before getting into film animation, and then started directing shorts, including one called about aliens in his home city called Alive in Joburg. This caught the eye of people who wanted to make a movie based on the Halo video game series, and he finished a short test film, however funding fell through and the project died. Producer Peter Jackson gave Blomkamp the opportunity to make his own film, and he decided to expand the Joburg idea into a feature. And with a budget of only about thirty million, he put together one of the most interesting science fiction movies in a while.

It seems like a lot of people didn't know what to expect with this movie. Some expected more action, some expected more focus on the political aspects of the plot. The movie follows a mild mannered bureaucrat named Wikus who's assigned to oversee the eviction of over a million aliens who landed in Johannesburg twenty years earlier and have been staying in a large slum called District 9. They don't get along well with humans, as the government keeps them from integrating and steals their technology while Nigerian gangsters sell them cat food and animal heads at absurd prices. I know all I'm really doing now is describing the movie, but it's a fun thing to talk about. The story has an obvious parallel to apartheid, though some see it as more of an immigration thing. I think there are elements of both, though with the setting and the basis for the plot, I think apartheid is the strongest connection.

The weakest thing about the movie is probably the premise. I think Blomkamp did a good job of justifying it and executing the idea, as the constant cuts to news feeds and interviews with people who talk in the past tense are an interesting hook, and really push the idea of this being a take on real issues. But the actual specifics with the concept I'm just not sure about. Is this really what would happen if a ton of aliens showed up on our doorstep, out of fuel and dying? We just throw them in a slum and steal all their technology? I really don't know how we could possibly handle it, it just sounds more like a movie plot than a realistic "what if?" scenario. When you see how easily an unarmed "prawn" can take down an unprepared human, you wonder why their hasn't been a revolt or war yet, and the outright evilness of the government's actions is a little tiring. Also, the science of the main plot with Wikus is a bit silly, but hey, whatever.

The long first act introducing all this is at times poignant and others quite funny, but what its doing is just setting up for what I really liked about the movie; the violent part. Stuff happens that causes Wikus to have to go on the run, and he ends up helping a prawn and his son who are trying to get off the planet. This kicks off a sequence of action set pieces where crazy alien weapons are discharged, lots of people die in horribly gruesome yet awesome ways, and some stuff blows up nice and good. It's a multi-pronged conflict, as everybody wants to get their hands on Wikus while he just wants to get back to his wife. I ended up really liking his character. The actor's performance is a bit shaky when he gets dramatic, but he's realistic in his foolishness at first and desperation later, a believable person likable in his selfish idiocy. Definitely not the hero you'd expect in a summer blockbuster. It's all supported by some very nice visual effects. The prawns aren't the most impressive thing ever but they integrate better with the scene than a lot of CGI creations, and the movie has possibly the best depiction of a mech I've seen in a live action production. The movie turns out to end somewhat ambiguously, allowing for a sequel without necessitating one. The movie isn't without its flaws, but I really liked it for the duration.